Author: Mike Ritchie

By: Mike Ritchie, MRA Consulting Group Date: 12/02/2018 If you haven’t heard it already, the household recycling industry is in all sorts of trouble. 2018 is going to be a troubled year for most MRFs (Materials Recovery Facilities) and therefore their council clients. The Chinese National Sword policy has bitten and bitten hard. National Sword […]

More than a week after the Queensland election, current predictions are for a Labor majority. At the same time, the NSW EPA has told a NSW parliamentary inquiry that the scale of waste transport to Queensland is far higher than previously believed. An eye-watering 830,000 tonnes was transported in 2016/17, largely by rail, almost double […]

MRA Consulting Group – Press Release TITLE: Revisiting the issue of interstate waste movement By: Mike Ritchie 14 August 2017 According to an ABC report on the 8th of August, the Queensland Premier was “horrified” to hear of the extent of dumping of waste from NSW in Queensland. The Queensland government was “not aware … […]

We are hearing more and more of the circular economy, an approach to resources that keeps materials away from waste, and brings them back into the productive economy. It rejects the status quo “take-make-dispose” linear economy in favour of cycling biological and technical materials. It is an approach that goes beyond improving recycling. A circular […]

The media made a big deal out of ten houses at Collaroy, Sydney slipping into the sea. The Federal Government’s own report hyas shown that a 1 metre rise in sea level would place up to 247,000 houses at risk. The iconic photographs of an in-ground swimming pool stranded on a Collaroy Beach last month […]

Clients regularly ask why they need a waste licence for an activity which on the face of it might not look like waste processing. Recent Land and Environment Court (LEC) and Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) decisions have clarified the meaning of “waste” in NSW and it is important that people working in the sector […]

The Great Barrier Reef is exposed to increasing pressures from climate change, rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, land-based runoff and other pressures. The Summer of 2016 has been bad for the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef), one of Australia’s most iconic world heritage sites. High sea temperatures and rising nutrient and sediment loads in runoff […]

On 16 February 2016, the Australian population reached 24 million people. Waste generation rates are a function of population growth, the level of urbanisation and per capita income[i] and Australians now produce about 50 million tonnes of waste each year, averaging over 2 tonnes per person. There are more of us and we generate more […]

Bags Not! Finding the solution for Australia’s plastic bags The recent Ministerial Roundtable on plastics could not agree whether to ban, price or leave Single Use Plastic Bags (SUPBs) for another day. We use approximately 6 billion SUPBs each year, of which 2 percent are recycled [i]. SUPBs are being, or have been, banned in South […]

Voluntary action by every individual helps to grow recycling rates; an extra milk bottle in the recycling bin; installing a home composting system, all contribute. Australia leads the world in household recycling rates. In the business sector most of the economically viable streams are already being recycled (cardboard, paper, metals and plastic) although there is […]